What were they thinking? You already have Victoria talking about the United Kingdom in Civ 6, that includes Scotland, you dullards, so don't @ me with "she means just England". There's like 800 better picks in Asia, Africa and the Americas. We're a small step away from the fucking Confederate States of America getting in now.

If you have to do Europe, bring back Venice. Try the Papal States. The Hanseatic League. Use your damn imaginations.

I don't even hate Scotland. Scotland was one of my Civ 5 mod projects (with Robert the Bruce, natch). But to spend money on Scotland? To develop it, or to buy it? BRITAIN doesn't spend money on Scotland in real life!

I wouldn't mind seeing more mods like this for other active world leaders. And for future Civilization games, it maybe serves as a design prompt: leader bonuses should probably be a thing that changes or fluctuates over time, depending perhaps on the user's playstyle, rather than being totally static from 4000BC to 2050AD.

There's never announced limits for DLC or expansions 'cause that would set expectations which might not necessarily be totally realistic. Generally speaking, as long as people keep buying, new stuff will keep being added.

I think the most expansions a Civ has had was three. Though these days new civs tend to be released between large expansions, too.

I guess Rise & Fall is out, along with a fairly substantial free patch. I'll probably hold off for a bit or at least go read some reviews first. Some of the bits and pieces in the patch sound pretty good.

Spoiler for patch notes :

Base Game Patch Notes

ENHANCEMENTS

Rework start position algorithm to spread major powers evenly across the map first and then insert city-states in the margins. Results in improved distances between Civilizations and better quality for major civ start positions.
Add notification about production salvaged from a Wonder. Make sure that production is credited.

BALANCE CHANGES

Diplomatic actions now scale with game speed.
Government Policies that increase production on Melee class units now include Anti-Cavalry class units.
Change tech boost for Steel to add a soft prerequisite that hints you probably want Ironclads before Destroyers.
Barbarian difficulty has been updated to scale with each difficulty level. (Warlord, Prince, King etc...)
Healing plunder reward from Farms reduced from 100 to 50.
‘Sack’ government policy has been removed and its effects have been added to the ‘Raid’ policy.
Naval combat changes – Bombard land units are now more effective against naval units, Ranged land units are less effective against naval units.
Pillage rewards are now displayed in the tooltip of the Pillage action button.
Boost number of random Apostle Promotions from 2 to 3.
Reduce Science per population from 0.7 down to 0.5.
Great Admirals and Great Generals have a combat bonus and a movement bonus, they no longer stack.
Gold and Faith rewards from Tribal Villages now scale with Game Speed.

GENERAL BUG FIXES

Apostles could run out of random promotions to choose from.
If a spy is traveling to a city that changes hands, abort travel and return them to your capital.
Warrior Monks now benefit from Great Generals and can earn the Spear of Fionn promotion.
Abundant resource will spawn sea luxuries.
Units levied from a city-state will now retain any promotions earned while controlled by a player.
Fixed several issues with obsolete units appearing in the production menu for a city.
Fortified units will now properly ‘wake up’ after being attacked.
Fortified or Sleeping units that have been expelled from a city will now properly ‘wake up’.
Support units can now be levied from City-States.
Fixed a bug preventing Ranged Cavalry class units from receiving the combat bonus from the Spear of Fionn ability.
Fixed an issue with embarked units not being able to heal in friendly territory.
Properly abort all spy missions if a city changes hands.
Fixed an issue that caused zone of control UI to show between religious units of the same player.
Properly update siege status of a city when units die, are deleted, etc.
Don’t award a Spread Religion charge to Gurus from the Mosque.
Make sure losing Kandy as an ally doesn’t interfere with the Reliquaries belief.

AI

Fixed an issue that was causing the AI to send multiple spies on the same mission.
AI will look at graphic change on spaceports, and can target their spies to spaceports that are performing their science victory projects.
Improved opportunity cost considerations for district placement.
Improve ability to place / use aqueducts.
AI knows to move builders back into their territory if they get caught outside.
AI will not complain about stealth units it can’t see being too close to its border.
AI is much less likely to trade its cities away as part of a peace deal.
Improved resource trading, AI considers luxury resources it is currently importing.
Improved new city placement, also fixed issues where the settler would try to travel through hostile territory to get an escort.
AI prefers garrisoning ranged units over melee.
If the AI can capture, or significantly damage, a target city, it may ignore hostile units nearby to do that.
Fixed coordinating ranged attacks.

MULTIPLAYER

Changing default Resources option to Standard for multiplayer. There is a map generation issue where setting Resources to Abundant and StartPosition to Balanced results in civ starting positions being too close together.
Players could not ready up when dirty from another match.
Improved stability when players connect to or disconnect from launching games.
Pausing the game could desync multiplayer games.
Missing official content icon was not working in the multiplayer lobby.
Improved stability when game host leaves game in multiplayer.
Made sure you can’t declare war on a Teammate.

CIV-SPECIFIC BUG FIXES

Properly credit Kongo with 1 Culture, 1 Tourism if multiple works from the same artist are in the Palace.
Don’t give the Hansa bonuses for adjacent Antiquity Sites/Shipwrecks.
Allow India to train Warrior Monks if 1 follower of that religion is in the city.
Fix Arabia’s unique ability so only FOREIGN cities following their religion that add Science.
If the Kongo captures a city-state, don’t let them grab a Holy Site.

USER INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS

Show turns until Anarchy clears.
Show turns until Friendship lapses.
Defeated notification indicates whether a city-state or full civ was eliminated.
Remove warmonger information on the Keep City dialog if city received in a trade.
Only allow religious units to Rest/Repair on tiles where they are close enough to a Holy Site to actually heal.
Do not hide Casus Belli sub-menu if a denouncement has not occurred (so the raisin that war can't be declared is clearer to the player).
Show turns until Denouncement clears.
Correct timing of Culture Victory imminent message.
Add notification if an enemy spy escaped your police.
Emphasized several notifications indicating negative effects on the player.
Civilopedia bug fixes and improvements.
Trade Route panel bug fixes and improvements.
Corrected an Issue where incorrect team numbers were displayed.
Add whether or not an original capital was conquered or not to the associated gossip message.
Show requirements for each Casus Belli when that option is grayed out.
Fixed map pin corruption when deleting and adding map pins.
Version mismatched games are colored differently in multiplayer lobby.
If multiple players are affected by a nuclear attack, the Declare War warning dialog will now appropriately list all players involved.
Always show the player’s own cities first in the list of trade route destinations.

ART

New Barbarian Scout skin.
Animation fix for Gorgo.

WRITING
Various text updates and bug fixes.

Oh, uh, I forgot to pause by Humble Monthly sub for February, so I have a spare copy of Civ VI and the Aussie and Viking DLC packs if anyone wants 'em. Check the system requirements first though.

I guess they might be teasing a second Civ 6 expansion, another wave of individual civ DLC ( ) or maybe even a new game entirely a la something on the mobile scale, or a CivRev at the largest, since they'd never announce Civ 7 this early.

If it's a new expansion, I'm betting it'll introduce some new dynamic weather mechanic. I'm thinking of Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron where changing weather patterns can positively/negatively affect production, movement, battles, etc. Any Civilization equivalent would probably be less hardcore though.

Pretty sure the Maori/Pacific Island civ hinted at is at least partially inspired by Moana. That narrator character continues to be very weird looking especially when most of the other characters don't seem to have anime-face. It's like a more distracting version of the upcoming Battle Angel Alita.

- Nine new leaders across eight new civilizations, which I believe matches the previous expansion. No doubt Firaxis will announce 'em the same way leading up to launch, so... get ready for lots of speculation.

- Environmental disasters and hazards, such as earthquakes, blizzards, sandstorms, volcanoes, and floods, with the possibility of some kinda scaling severity, probably connected to however climate change is represented mechanically

- Resources like coal and oil now require additional power plants, which come with the expected drawbacks. Renewables are also being added for greener players.

- World Congress! And with it some kinda diplomatic victory condition. Finally. Treaties, promises, global favour and social influence, votes on global resolutions, etc. A new tech era will be added to accommodate a lot of this. More hooks into the new climate systems will also be here.

Leader Ability - Kupe’s Voyage - Starts in the Ocean, and receives +2 science and +2 culture each turn before settling. When you settle the first city, receive +1 population and a free builder. The Palace grants +3 housing and +1 amenities.

Unique Unit - Toa - Replaces the Swordsman. Has the Haka War Dance ability, which reduces the strength of adjacent enemies by 5.

Unique Infrastructure - Pa - Unique improvement, only buildable by Toa. Provides a defensive bonus to units fortified on it. Heals units that end their turns on it.

Unique Infrastructure - Marae - Replaces the Amphitheatre. Provides +2 culture and +2 faith to all passable features in the city, and +2 Tourism after flight. Costs no maintenance. Has no Great Work slots.

Starting in the sea is a really cool unique feature, I don't think we've seen anything remotely close to that before, and getting all Sailing/Shipbuilding/enhanced embarkment right away is a pretty big deal, especially on archipelago maps - or the Real Earth maps, since this would let you snipe Australia.

They can't harvest resources, but I don't know how much of a drawback that is for most people unless there's benefits to harvesting vs. improvements that I'm unaware of. No Great Writers and no Great Work slots on their Amphitheatre replacement sorta puts a nail in their prospects for a cultural victory unless you get really lucky in other areas.

The animations on Kupe are cool, but the narrator's pronunciation of Maori words is a bit cringey. Kamehameha in the previous game also had the 'cross oceans from the start' feature, which is fun and helped you scoop up those ancient ruins that noone else could get to until the renaissance.

Whoa, I totally blanked on Kamehameha. It hasn't been that long since I last played Civ V, and yet, whoosh.

In most ways I think I like this Maori concept better, but we'll see how the AI handles the ocean start. I assume on a Real Earth map they should always beeline towards New Zealand, yeah? It'll be kinda wild if that's randomized.

I mean they shouldn't beeline towards NZ, because even on larger world maps NZ is like 4 tiles, max. If anything taking control of all the pacific islands would be better living because there'd at least be a lot of shoreline/fish. Then again the same problem arises, where unless your map is of the SW pacific probably most of those islands aren't big enough to matter.

If anything taking control of all the pacific islands would be better living because there'd at least be a lot of shoreline/fish.

Especially 'cause I've never seen Indonesia take those islands, which is odd. In my games they've always gone straight for Africa, usually leaving nothing but their capital in their own neighborhood, while Japan and Australia always like to hit mainland Asia via China and ignore the islands completely.

Maori could snipe a lot of space everyone else is bypassing, assuming their own AI doesn't land them in Alaska or something. Heh, the Americas are gonna be pretty crowded this time around since it looks like the leaks are all coming true.